Critique request-rusty rangefinder skills

[trineonx]

This week I bought my first digital camera that produces an image that is in all ways technically superior to film, my 5DII, IMHO anyway. The image has more detail than any film image I've ever taken, I can produce incredible results at high iso, color is amazing, it's all very good, and very reliable. It makes for an excellent work camera, which is what it is.

All that said, I picked up my dusty M2 and 50 cron and blew through a roll just to make sure that I can still appreciate the intangibles. Using a 50 year old camera after shooting digital for a living is like using crayons after oil paints. I say that in the best possible way, the old leica removes so many variables, choices and other things that can turn into needless complications so quickly on my digital. With crayons, you just make an image. I don't have to check 4 different variables before every shoot like I do on my digital (WB, ISO, Shutter and F-stop). White balance and ISO take care of themselves. Exposure controls are less critical too, two stops off? HP5+ can handle it.
So nice to just bring a camera to my eye and work on instinct. Producing images for my editor means that whether I like it or not, there is always that knowledge in the back of my head that this must meet newspaper criteria; sharp, well exposed, clear subject matter, etc... All the light that passes through my leica lens is for me, and I get to choose what is good and what isn't. The pictures I want you to take a look at would never fit most newspaper criteria for an acceptable image, yet I think that all of them tell a story with more impact than I can normally get across in day today shooting. Of course, in day to day shooting I don't get to pick my subject matter, or the story that I want to tell.
Anyway, let me know how I did. And try to look past my terrible scanning skills.

 

[Al Kaplan]

You did well. I think that we'd have a lot of much stronger images in our publications if less of the shooting was done by essentially untrained reporters with DSLR's. It probably won't matter in a few years. All the newspapers are shrinking the number of pages, and those are the lucky ones. The rest are folding.

 

[Keith]

I like your photos.

Any newspaper that would publish pics like these might encourage me to take it more seriously and actually read it instead of using it to light the fire in winter! 😛

 

[Gaspar]

We could start a whole new thread on the future of newspapers. What's the future for them.
I wonder if Keith has not hit the nail in the head, if the photography was better maybe we would buy the paper instead o reading the news on the web.